The statue of limitations
If we’re going to shrug off the colonial shroud that has hung over New Zealand for so many long, deferential years, then let us consider the name of our fair city before we start tearing down statues.
And let us also consider the silver lining that seems to have come with the pandemic: This election campaign, for the first time in a long time, we’re not going to hear Winston Peters bang on about the evils of immigration.
Or maybe he will, for if the latest polls are any indication, New Zealand First is (again) going down the gurgler, so raising the spectre of immigration might be worth a last despairing fling from a dying party.
As for our beloved Palmy, let us get on with it and rename it Papaioea, as it was once called by ma¯ori, one translation of which is ‘‘how beautiful it is’’, we’re told.
It sure beats the pants off living with the moniker of an obscure, longago British primeminister, who was the epitome of amid-19th century imperial colonial system whose shackles we are struggling to free ourselves from.
We should be thankful that at least there aren’t statues of Palmerston blighting our landscape, unlike the unfortunate situation Hamilton had to deal with.
How we might go about effecting such a name change is an interesting issue in itself – a referendum, perhaps, or maybe the city council could lead and vote it in.
The past casts a baleful shadow over settler societies because what occurred invariably involved the violent subjugation of any locals, accompanied by an injection of the poison of racism.
Even today, we still hear howma¯ori benefited from the ‘‘civilising’’ influence of the British, who rescued them from their benighted Stone Age existence.
The arrogance is breathtaking, but thrives, alive and well, among us. Just listen to talk radio and look at social media, if you can stand it. Anonymity is the cloak of power for all those brave warriors out there whowant the country cleaned up.
It is also, from time to time, a handy vote-getter too, of course. This surely says asmuch about New Zealanders in general as it does about those seeking to profit from such despicable nonsense.
One recalls, for example, the infamous Don Brash speech of 2004 in which the then-leader of the National Party decried what he saw as the creeping ‘‘apartheid’’ afflicting this country due to the special benefits Ma¯ori were supposedly enjoying.
Well, if they were, or are, such advantages don’t seem to be making much difference all these years later in 2020, going by the usual dismal socioeconomic indicators.
The depressing thing is Brash’s speech did wonders for National’s rating in the opinion polls, boosting it to 45 per cent from 28 per cent, putting the Opposition party 10 points ahead of the Clark-led Labour Government.
It almost did the trick for National on the hustings the following year, when the party nearly won the 2005 election before Brash did the country a favour and quit politics after he was defeated, but it surely is awarning from history: Beat the racist drum and theywill come. And whowould bet on the outcome being different today?
There is hope though, even if the likes of Brash can’t be persuaded to change theirminds. Take the latest debate over Marton’s James Cook statue, for instance.
The good captain was consigned to the ignominy of a box after threats were apparently levelled against the statue. That’s statue, mind, not an actual live person. But since then there has been a debate about the matter and it seems to have been the kind of discussion grown-ups ought to have about these things.
The same report did say though – and it appeared to be sourced to mayor Andy Watson – that ‘‘the majority of Marton residents were in favour of keeping the statue’’.
How did they know that? Has there been a plebiscite of some kind? And even if that was the case, should such a vote be the decisive factor?
Majoritarianism rarely favours Ma¯ori, even if the said majority do like to equate it with democracy. It’s one of the reasons why health boards, for example, have Ma¯ori appointed to them, why there is a persistent call for Ma¯ori wards to be set up in local body jurisdictions and why there are Ma¯ori seats in Parliament.
Ma¯ori know, even if the rest of us seemingly don’t, that their interests will not be properly catered for until Ma¯ori sit at the decision-making table.
As someone said with much insight during the Marton debate on Cook, New Zealand has a dual history from two overlapping cultural worlds – and theywill inevitably express their history in different ways.
Alister Browne, an experienced scribe based in Manawatu¯, writes a weekly political column